PDEA IMBROGLIO: TOP EXECS SWAP CHARGES OVER DRUG ARREST

TROUBLE is brewing at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency with top
officials at loggerheads with one of their own, controversial former Manila
police Capt. Reynaldo Jaylo, now head of PDEA's Task Force Hunter.

It all started when PDEA chief Anselmo S. Avenido, Jr. ordered Jaylo to
stop using the agency's non-organic personnel in anti-drug operations amid
several complaints filed before the PDEA, some of them from
Filipino-Chinese, accusing Jaylo and his men of extortion.

In turn, Jaylo, a former Western Police District anti-narcotics unit chief,
accused senior PDEA officials led by Avenido and one of his deputies,
Assistant Secretary Rodolfo N. Caisip, of protecting Wilson Gan, a
Filipino-Chinese who was arrested for drug trafficking in Valenzuela City.

People's Journal earlier learned that prior to Jaylo's outburst, PDEA
agents headed by Supt. Gracito Bing L. Barangan raided Gan's residence
based on the suspicion it was a clandestine shabu laboratory.

The raiders, however, found no evidence that would link Gan to drugs.
Embarrassed and angry, Gan reportedly berated the PDEA agents and
threatened to file criminal and administrative charges against them.

A PJ source said that Barangan confronted Gan when he started cursing
members of his team. Proverbial cooler heads later intervened and pacified
the two.

Gan, meanwhile, went to the PDEA headquarters to file a complaint against
Barangan and his men.

For his part, Caisip, a retired police colonel, vehemently denied that Gan
is his close friend and "kumpare" as Jaylo has been claiming.

"I vehemently deny innuendoes that Wilson Gan is my 'kumpare' as claimed by
Jaylo who was even quoted as saying he fears a possible whitewash of the
drug case they filed against Gan," Caisip said.

It turned out that several weeks after his house was raided by PDEA agents,
Gan was arrested for alleged drug trafficking by Jaylo and his men in
Valenzuela City.

"The truth of the matter is that there were only two occasions when I have
seen and talked with Gan. The first one was when he and his business
partner, Peter Young, went to the PDEA office to file a complaint against
Superintendent Barangan and his team. The second was during the
confrontation with Superintendent Barangan at my office," Caisip said.

He said that he was merely asked by Avenido to attend to the complaint
against Barangan and his team. Caisip said that Barangan and Gan later
settled their differences following a series of discussions.

Weeks after the issue was settled, Caisip said that Young again called him
up and sought his help in finding Gan who was picked up by unidentified
PDEA personnel.

Upon verification, Caisip said, he learned from directors of the PDEA Metro
Manila Regional Office and the Special Enforcement Service that they were
not the ones who arrested Gan.

Caisip later discovered that Gan had been picked up by Jaylo and his men
for drug trafficking in Valenzuela City.

(To be continued)